1. Field
The following description relates to a peer-to-peer (P2P) network system and a method of operating the same based on a region, and more particularly, to a P2P network system that supports resource searching by classifying super peers of the P2P network system into fixed regions, and a method of operating the P2P network system based on the fixed regions.
2. Description of the Related Art
Development of wired and wireless Internet technology has led to the emergence of systems for sharing resources through the Internet. Such resource sharing systems adopt peer-to-peer (P2P) technology as networking technology to share resources. A P2P system includes a plurality of peers that are connected to each other through a network, wherein each peer may store at least one resource, such as software and content, and the peers may share these resources through the network.
A P2P system is based on hybrid P2P architecture or pure P2P architecture. In the hybrid P2P architecture, peers of a network are connected to a central sever and share their resources through the central server. Meanwhile, in the pure P2P architecture, peers are connected directly to each other to share their resources. In particular, the hybrid P2P architecture has an advantage of more easily solving problems related to peer power management and network updating by using the central server to manage the peers.
However, in the hybrid P2P architecture, peers only recognize their logical relationship to one another. In particular, super peers, which correspond to central servers, recognize other super peers that are connected to each other and do not consider physical distance separating the super peers. Accordingly, when a specific edge peer that is registered and connected with a super peer searches for resources, the edge peer collects information regarding resources of all edge peers registered with the super peer, regardless of physical distance from the edge peer. As a result, the edge peer searching for resources may search for or download a resource from another edge peer that is located far away, even when it could have found the resource from a different edge peer that is closer. As a result, the increase in the load on the network may prevent other edge peers from searching for resources, and may even result in the network crashing.